If, as has been suggested in Portugal, there was a “media circus” around the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, then it is the Portuguese police who are the clowns.

Cruel, stupid, spiteful clowns.

You would never guess it but Kate and Gerry McCann are not actually on trial in Lisbon.

Madeleine’s parents have brought legal action against detective Goncalo Amaral, who they accuse of libelling them in his book, Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie.

But the Portuguese plods have used the libel case to declare open season on the McCanns. One former policeman, Francisco Moita Flores, told the court that only the ­“distraction” of the “media circus” prevented the McCanns from being charged with negligence.

“No one believed it was an abduction,” he told the court. “It was a fairytale, a fable.”

But if Madeleine was not abducted, then what happened?

The Portuguese police were shown up as a bunch of clueless amateurs by the Madeleine case, and – shamed, embarrassed, infuriated – they turned their rage on the McCanns.

Even now, the Portuguese cops treat Kate and Gerry McCann with a grotesque lack of respect.

Asked if he cared that he had hurt the McCanns, Goncalo Amaral told a BBC reporter: “No, f*** the McCanns.”

A class act, that fat copper, who has sought to make money out of a stolen child – and the endless grief of her parents.

And what a shock to see the faces of Kate and Gerry McCann back in our newspapers.

The indelible pain is stamped on their faces for ever.

The greatest tragedy is, of course, that a little girl was stolen from her family.

But it is also genuinely tragic that the Portuguese police did not seriously look for the bastard who stole her.

And that’s because they have always been far too busy slandering that little girl’s parents.